Ship Design Guidelines?

[vnome]

I'm very interested in designing a ship and admittedly I'm just getting started, haven't even drawn up my plan for the model but it would be helpful to have an idea what is and isn't accepted.

Actual numbers I can use to determine the balance of a ship? Am I limited to four directions for guns? That sort of thing.

[negreanu11]

heres a new question, what progra can you create a digital model of the shi in

[ArtFarliner]

vnome
1) In most cases you should be working based on the existant set of plans for a real ship of apropriate time period.
2) caliber of guns and their final ammount is determined by FLS people, you only create the ship model itself. Same goes for ships speed turn rates, crew etc.
3) I am fairly certain that most important guidelines for these things will be up here soon enough fropm old forums.

*****anu11: same, guidelines should be there soon, but most modelers who do not have access to professional software like 3DMax or Maya use either GMax or Wings 3d, aparently.

[Hans]

1. Preferably a historical ship using blueprints to make the hull and masts. We can help and give you some ship plans if you want.

2. Must be from between the years of 1660 and 1740. That means the USS Constituion from 1800's is out for example, as are most galleons from the 1500's.

3. Flying Lab doesn't want any more ships of the line, so try to stay with ships with 50 or fewer guns.

4. No Asian ships right now. Only European vessels are allowed, though many Meditterrainian ships like Xebecs are exotic enough already.

[vnome]

Thanks, I guess that answers most of my questions but it also seems to put my idea right out the window as well.

I was planning to base my design on the Ogre Juggernaut unit from Warcraft 2 (if somewhat loosely, heh). Decidedly neither a period nor European vessel.

Also I was looking forward to at least giving a general idea of it's various statistics, but that part isn't so bad.

Well, I'll probably still give it a go just maybe not my original plan. Was hoping to be quite a bit more divergent from ship designs already present and that you seem to suggest are considered.

[ArtFarliner]

Well, while juggernaut sure was fun unit to play around with in WC II, and making it's model would be a nice challange to any modelmaker, it would not really be apropriate for a historically based game like this one - there were previously proposals to put the "Black Pearl" model from the Pirates of the Caribean movie into the game that was rejected mainly for two reasons - a)it is a coppyrighted ship b) it is not a historically accurate ship as basic East Indiaman design was modified to fit the filmmakers needs (most obvious beeing the ridiculous oars on lower deck) and thus is not fit for this game.

Also it was made aparent that right now no ships that would fit time period but have no realistic reason of beeing in Carribean area (such as asian Junk) should be offered for inclusion in game. So if you want to do some modelling, pick a set of plans, make a thread with your project idea and hear the response from Steering Comitee before dooing any serious work on it, as it would be rather dissapointing to loose lot fo time and effort put into model unsuitiable for the game.

[Michael O'Dwyer]

We are still working on trying to resurrect the links posts we had in the old forums

However a good place to start looking at ships is the Orlogsbasen

http://www.orlogsbasen.dk/enkel.htm

Under the danish section the Maagen was one of the pre approved ships.

There are others but I cannot recall the names now.

[cbkrahn]

Originally Posted by Michael O'Dwyer We are still working on trying to resurrect the links posts we had in the old forums However a good place to start looking at ships is the Orlogsbasen http://www.orlogsbasen.dk/enkel.htm Under the danish section the Maagen was one of the pre approved ships. There are others but I cannot recall the names now.

This site doesn't work anymore. Once you get past the link and into the database every link returns a "HTTP/1/1 500 Server Error".

[Hans]

One other rule is that Flying Lab provides the textures you use on your ships. You cannot use your own textures.

[Amonaug]

Maybe I missed it somewhere but what file format for submission should the models be in?